Victor

That's a wrap for S67 folks! Congratulations to the Wolves for bringing the Continental Cup to Vancouver for the first time. End of season results will be coming before the end of the week. And before anyone has a meltdown over this week's question 2, keep in mind uncapped TPE is handed out for every 2 correct answers, not every 1. Anyway, this week's answers: 1. Who was the first defenceman to lead the league in assists? (Credit and 1 uncapped TPE to @gorlab) It's a trophy which a defenceman can realistically aim for, as shown by the fact all 4 winners from S62 to S66 were blue-liners. However, it wasn't until S5 that a defenceman first won the Beketov (or the Mikita as it was then known, given Beketov wasn't drafted yet and all). That was the great Joey Kendrick, putting up an obscene 112 assists, still among the second highest mark of all-time. Kendrick's Hall of Fame article would have informed you that he was a defenceman, while two other options, Ace Lightning (a forward) and Tomas Jenskovic (and another defenceman) won the trophy after Kendrick. Jonathan McKelvie, who may or may not be @Cornholio, did lead the league in assists before in Kendrick (in S2) and is not a Hall of Famer, so the easiest way to know if he was a defenceman would have been to check if he was on the defencemen all-time stats spreadsheet (he isn't). 2. When was the first time a goalie was named VHL MVP (whether by player or GM/BOG/Committee vote)? Ah, a nice end of season trick question! As the top of the Brett Slobodzian Trophy page says, for the first 20 seasons it was another MVP trophy, rather than MOP which it is now. That means that although Aidan Shaw, in S21, was the first goalie to win the Scotty Campbell Trophy (although Daisuke Kanou won the Slobo that season), he was beaten to the title of MVP by Jonas Markstrom in S16. Markstrom didn't win the Campbell that season, but did win the Tretiak (which became the Shaw) which would have probably been the easiest way to find out if he was a goalie. Alright, here's the capped TPE: 2 capped TPE: Beketov @Beketov Poptart @Poptart Velevra @Velevra Sharkstrong @Sharkstrong Patpou22 @Patpou22 Jubo07 @Jubo07 CowboyinAmerica @CowboyinAmerica SidTheKid87 @SidTheKid87 STZ @STZ Oilmandan @oilmandan Greg_Di @Greg_Di Nykonax @Nykonax Bushito @Bushito Quik @Quik BarzalGoat @BarzalGoat Smarch @Smarch Snussu @Snussu Sonnet @Sonnet Sebster03 @Sebster03 sjs88speed @sjs88speed GRZ @GRZ Enorama @Enorama Phil @Phil Tate @Tate Renomitsu @Renomitsu Anthony Matthews @Anthony Matthews hedgehog337 @hedgehog337 Xdpark @xDParK 1 capped TPE: philliefan @Philliefan Green @Green rjfryman @rjfryman frescoelmo @frescoelmo Jbeezy76 @Jbeezy76 Ace @Ace GustavMattias @GustavMattias Esso2264 @Esso2264 majesiu @majesiu Tuktukthegreat @TukTukTheGreat Bruins10 @Bruins10 Steve @Steve Beaviss @Beaviss Motzaburger @Motzaburger DMaximus @DMaximus MacH @MacH Tbeez99 @Tbeez99 diamond_ace @diamond_ace metaltoday @MetalToday Telkster @Telkster Hughjas_ @HughJas_ fonziGG @fonziGG Juddy @Juddy Dalton Wilcox @Dalton Wilcox Acydburn @Acydburn McWolf @McWolf Jtv123 @Jtv123 Jaku @Jaku VanCanWin @VanCanWin MexicanCow123 @MexicanCow123 okocha5 @okocha5 Hulkhogan @HulkHogan Mr_Hatter @Mr_Hatter Kekzkrieg @Kekzkrieg jack @jack enigmatc @enigmatic Matt_O @Matt_O Higgins @Higgins studentized @studentized Thranduil @Thranduil Zeno @Zeno TheLastOlympian07 @TheLastOlympian07 nethi99 @nethi99 Infernal @Infernal AndrewWarren13 @AndrewWarren13 aCrypticPancake @aCrypticPancake Liberty_Cabbage @Liberty_Cabbage Chillzone @chillzone Cornholio @Cornholio jRuutu @jRuutu HenrikZoiderberg @HenrikZoiderberg Saelven88 @Saelven88 Psyduck77 @Psyduck77 .sniffuM @.sniffuM DilIsPickle @DilIsPickle DollarAndADream @DollarAndADream FrostBeard @FrostBeard Kylrad @Kylrad elrune1988 @elrune1988 JeffD @JeffD omgitshim @omgitshim flyersfan1453 @flyersfan1453 VanCanWin @VanCanWin Rayzor_7 @Rayzor_7 BladeMaiden @BladeMaiden eaglesfan036 @eaglesfan036 Jardy - who is playing with my heart??? DoktorFunk @DoktorFunk Josh @Josh 73MPL4R @73MPL4R kyle @Kyle

If only Switzerland was exempt from the salary cap.

I am unable to comment at this particular point in time.

From memory Miller was 7th season too, but I do mean retiring with a cup rather than ending 8th with a cup. It's just for me 8th and final season are the same.

2010, although I put you down as 2011.

Absolute steal.

So I'm going into the 8th season of a player again. The end and eternal darkness is looming once more. Honestly I didn't think I'd be here for another 8th season after retiring Clegane in S52 but not only am I here with Cast, I still have another 7 seasons of Pavlov to go. And then, who knows. Now I can have few complaints about my return on investment in the VHL. Podrick Cast is my 6th player and most likely my 5th Hall of Famer. However, one thing that seems to haunt with my careers is a sense of anti-climax... I've never had a truly successful 8th season, despite it in theory being the likeliest to be so (what with fighting off depreciation and then not having to bank throughout the season). In fact, I have a won a Continental Cup in every single season of my players' careers, except my 8th: Season Trikamaki Berger Chershenko Bentley Clegane Cast 1st Cup 2nd Cup Cup Cup 3rd Cup Cup 4th Cup Cup Cup 5th Cup 6th Cup 7th Cup 8th Two players missed the playoffs entirely - Berger and Clegane having very meh final seasons. Trikamaki and Bentley went out in the first round despite being on the favoured teams to win. My boy Chershenko came closest, being regular season and playoff MVP, but losing in Game 7 overtime in the finals. Was that the one chance? Who knows. Will S68 be the one? For the second straight season, my two players will be on the same team. Moscow is in theory stronger than last year and this was the season I had in mind when the Cast/Randoms trade was made. But there's more contenders than ever before and the European Conference in particular is very tough. Cast has an equal chance of ending his career hoisting the cup or watching the playoffs from the couch. But maybe it'll be 6th time lucky....

S68 Donation - $20 Transaction ID 4E140583JW9285830 Free Week (12 TPE Capped) $1M Player Store Cash 5 TPE Uncapped Doubles Week x2

@Beketov is the last person you want to be fixing that

No

Wow Cast got voted for something!

What curse

Poor Prague is gonna get one hell of a beating.

Division 4 gonna be carnage.

2009 although you had an inactive earlier so maybe 2008 for you. Yeah those drafts got us to peak post expansion parity by S44/S45ish but then the collapse was huge, as too many of them were SHLers who didn't stick around. The super unbalanced conferences (S49/S50 NA vs EU) pretty much started when that generation retired without getting replaced.

I definitely did this on a weeknight ?

I miss three player Slobo ballots.

A couple weeks ago I went through every active player in the VHL above 100 TPE (i.e. S60 to S69) and put down the usernames of those players. I then added a few other members who don't have players but still pop in occasionally. Finally, I added their first player's draft year (or first relevant player's draft year as a few people only properly joined the league on their second attempt) and actual real life year that draft took place in. Then I pivoted the fuck out of it. Here's the result. So what does this show us? Well, for one, the absolutely insane recruitment effort which has taken place since the start of 2018 (S60). Now naturally, a table of S60-S69 players will be skewed towards the last two years as even inactives count towards the total and a similar snapshot at any point in time would have resulted in the more recent years being dominant. That said, this is still an unprecedented influx of new members, with roughly 75% of the league still on their first players. Even if only half the new joiners stick around for several years, 2018 and 2019 will still be the most popular join dates of active members. Aside from that obvious trend which has directly contributed to the revitalisation of the VHL after a really rough year or so, you can also see why the league was down in the dumps for so long. The pivot by year shows the continued retention qualities of the VHL as roughly the same amount of people have stuck around from each year, whether that be the guys here since S1 or anyone more recent. However, the last real good recruitment year before this boom seems to be 2013, with guys like CowboyinAmerica, boubabi, Tagger joining the league after expansion and keeping the momentum going through the 30s. Then the talent stopped trickling in. You look at the five members who joined in 2016 and still have players today – 2 of them are inactive, while the other 3 actually only just resurfaced. Essentially, before Beaviss and Spade joined in S57 towards the end of 2017 and then completely rehauled the league's recruitment efforts, the last 3 major contributing members to join the VHL were hedgehog and Bana in S42, and jRuutu in S43, all now over 4 years ago. That therefore paints a pretty good picture of why by S50 we were looking at artificially increasing the player pool with Project Player Two and when that didn't help / sucked the energy out of the dwindling member base we still had, we ended up with contraction by S58. So I suppose what I'm trying to say is the recruitment effort after that lowest of low points has been absolutely immense. I retired my “last” player in S52 and genuinely had no intention to come back on a permanent basis throughout 2017. Even when I did, I still found myself zoning in and out of the league in Cast's first two seasons – S60 and S61. But activity has picked up massively, I'm now in charge of an expansion team, we're expanding to a level we never came close to reaching at any point in the Cologne/Quebec era, and I might even be hooked enough to recreate for the foreseeable future. That's a job very well done if you ask me. Well done @Beaviss and the @Recruitment Crew

Unreal betrayal

Perfectly set up for riots.

Helsinki you’re really scaring me with these shots against.

Helsinki need to stop being such goons.

New York blowing a 3-1 lead to Davos the season before.

Doug Schneider made the finals in each of the seven seasons of his career so you’re tied at best. Dunno if @Green got close recently, Quill and Warlock won quite a few cups in a short amount of time.